


Chocolate & Vanilla

by thilesluna



Series: Dad Magnus and his Good Good Son [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Growing Up, Magnus is a dad and Ango is his boy, Post-Canon, i forgot to tag that at first, mentions of mild sleep paralysis, sorry y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 10:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11146347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilesluna/pseuds/thilesluna
Summary: After the whole thing is over, Angus moves in with Magnus.





	Chocolate & Vanilla

Angus and Magnus find each other and come to understand each other in the aftermath of the Bureau and the Hunger and inexplicably build up a life together. Angus brings Magnus to the city first, shows him Rockport and recounts all his old cases as best as he can remember.

 

(and maybe he embellishes a little but he lives for Magnus's reactions and the way he gasps at all the right moments—his grandfather would say to stretch the truth is to tell a lie but Taako would argue that saying whatever you want to make yourself look cool is totally a thing—and how he pats Angus on the shoulder to tell him how impressed he is with everything he's accomplished)

 

———

 

Magnus does okay in the city for a while as Angus goes to school. He suffers through the sedentary life because Angus _deserves_ this. He deserves to come home every afternoon to snacks (clumsily made) laid out on the table where he spreads his homework. He deserves a bed and a break after the last year of secrets and bullshit that he shouldn’t have had to endure.

 

He's eleven now but he's still a kid and Magnus wants him to actually get to do that.

 

They're there two months when Angus comes home with a split lip, a black eye, and the biggest grin Magnus has ever seen. He doesn't even have the chance to ask before Angus is off and running, telling a story about a little boy in his class— “Littler than me, Magnus! Can you imagine?" (it is hard to imagine, especially since Angus is in secondary school, a freshman at age 11)—who was cornered by some of the older boys and how Angus intervened and even got off a few spells before they tackled him to the ground.

 

"It was great!" Angus says, beaming.

 

Magnus restrains himself from reaching out to brush a thumb across the bruised skin beneath Angus's eye. He remembers the feeling of tight, hot skin under his own eye and the full body ache of his first fight and wants to take Angus into his arms but it's too soon and he doesn't think Angus would want that. Instead he wrings his hands nervously and tries to return the smile. "You're okay though?" he asks and Angus laughs.

 

"I'm great!" he says and Magnus relaxes. He throws his book bag onto the table. It sounds heavy tonight, and Magnus knows that means lots of homework—he's pretty useless when it comes to helping Angus with his work except for some of the math (carpentry requires math and math makes sense to Magnus)—but he doesn't stop himself from asking Angus if he wants to go for ice cream. "Before dinner?" Angus asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

 

Magnus shrugs. "We gotta celebrate your first fight somehow!" he says and when Angus's face lights up he knows he said the right thing. The truth is, Magnus just wants to spend a little more time with him before he’s off and working because there’s not much that can wrest Angus from schoolwork once he’s started. He doesn't have the words to tell Angus how proud he is so he decides that showing it with ice cream is the next best thing.

 

(Magnus does his best not to think about a dirty dog in an alley and a gang of boys with hard fists and sharp words)

 

They sit side by side on a bench, the warm spring sun shining down and making them chase drips of ice cream with their tongues. Angus laughs at Magnus when he gets vanilla in his sideburns and Magnus retaliates by tapping Angus's cone when he goes to take a lick. The boy ends up with chocolate smeared on the tip of his nose and the swell of his cheek and they both end up collapsed in a fit of giggles.

 

The walk back is slow, their bellies full and contented grins stretched across their faces. Magnus notices Angus's steps slow and falter a bit, limping along but trying not to show it. He hesitates for only moment before he's scooping Angus up and settling him on his shoulders. The boy yelps but it turns into a laugh and he rests his small hands on the top of Magnus's head. Magnus smiles and squeezes Angus's ankle just a little bit, soaking in the sound of a happy boy.

 

\-----

 

Angus knows that the city isn't really the place for Magnus just like he knows that Magnus would never, in a _million_ years say anything about it. The city is great because there's always something to do and there's ice cream only two blocks away from from their rented house, but he can tell that Magnus isn’t enthusiastic being cooped up and surrounded by people all the time.

 

For years, Magnus had been nomadic. More so than Angus could really even understand. He knows the story of the missing century and he's heard of the hundred worlds their sliver ship had visited but he's not sure he could even begin to understand what that actually felt like.

 

He thinks that the busy city streets remind Magnus of Raven's Roost too.

 

Angus doesn't snoop any deeper than the surface level, doesn't go digging past "The city was partially destroyed and hundreds of lives were lost" in the file because he realizes immediately that if Magnus hasn't shared this with him, it's not something he should know just like there are things about him that Magnus doesn’t know either.

 

He considers Magnus from the kitchen table and watches the way he moves at the stove. He's grown more confident in the past few months, moving from fantasy peanut butter and jelly to fantasy mac and cheese to real, whole meals like roasted chicken and potatoes. Angus knows that Taako helps a little over a stone of far speech but Magnus learns a lot by trial and error, just like with everything he does (they try their fair share of inedible things and Angus pats Mangus's arm reassuringly when his face falls to disappointment).

 

Even with all the domesticity, there are still a lot of days that Angus tiptoes around, walking carefully like he did back before he left the orphanage. He’s irrationally afraid to catch the attention of the matron even though she’s long gone. He knows that Magnus is nothing like her and he knows that this is his _home_ but there are mornings where he wakes up and he's back there, the oldest boy in the orphanage, the boy who asks too many questions and is always put in the attic.

 

The attic was a very small room. More of a crawl space than an actual attic, he thinks. It was barely tall enough for even a small boy like Angus and it was _dark_. Angus is 11-years-old now and _definitely_ not afraid of the dark but he was very afraid of that attic.

 

He tried hard to be good. He really did, but he was a precocious boy who loved a good mystery and it often got him in trouble. The Case of the Missing Doll got him two days in the attic and the Case of the Kitchen got him three. Three days in the dark, cramped space with the feeling of spider webs on his skin was torturous for a small boy, even one who wasn't (definitely _not_ ) afraid of the dark.

 

Angus, a young boy of 9-years-old, cried many times before closing his eyes and imagining himself far away. Sometimes he thinks of working along side of Caleb Cleveland but most of the time, he just thinks and wishes and dreams about being anywhere but here.

 

It was his last case at the orphanage that got him in the most trouble. He sometimes finds himself rubbing at the old scar, long and ugly, on his upper thigh even though the ache has long since faded. Of all the stories he’s told Magnus, this is the one that he doesn’t.

 

_(It was the biggest scandal to happen in the small town for ages and the case was broken wide open by a very small boy. Many people tried to sneak into the healing chamber to see this boy who was being hailed as the World’s Greatest Detective but none succeeded._

 

_The captain of the town’s militia (a year from retirement and looking forward to moving, at last, to Neverwinter for a long deserved break), forbid anyone from bothering the boy while he was tended to. He, himself, gave statements to the press and to the people looking for information regarding the child smuggling ring, but allowed no one to visit the boy._

 

_Angus McDonald, the boy in question, had saved the lives of countless children and paid dearly for it, in more ways than just the physical. It would be a long time, the doctors warned, before the little boy would be fully himself again. The wound was a dark magic that couldn’t be healed quickly and from what they were told, the treatment of the children under the matron’s care could be devestating to a child’s psyche. Angus, wondrous, incredible Angus, had seen the worst of that treatment for most of his short life._

 

_The captain, with no children and his wife long gone, would make sure that this boy would never see the inside of an orphanage again.)_

 

Angus misses his grandfather often. Not that the captain was really his grandfather but it felt strange to refer to him by rank after all he had done for him. It was also generally more socially acceptable to have a grandfather than a strange man sponsoring his schooling and day to day living. The old captain was kind to Angus and he loved to visit him when he was able, the two swapping detective stories late into the night.

 

——————

 

It’s still dark out when he wakes, not even late enough for the sun to peak in through Angus’s window and for a moment, he’s trapped beneath the covers of his bed, unable to move at all. His brain tells his arms to move and his legs and he’s trying so, so hard but he _can’t_ move.

 

Angus panics.

 

The light that usually burns over near his desk has gone out and the room is _dark_ , much darker than he’s used to. He hears the matron’s voice, hears the slamming of the door to the attic and Angus, a boy of eleven-years-old, begins to cry.

 

For a moment he thinks that the last three years have never happened and he thinks that he’s actually just been stuck in the attic for all this time, fantasizing about his grand escape. He never saved the world and never worked for the Bureau. He never met Taako and Merle and _Magnus_. He won’t see Cary and Killian at Candlenights because he’s imagined them all just like he used to when he was alone and afraid.

 

Angus thinks wildly that of all the punishments he’s received this one is the worst and he cries and yells, begging the matron to let him out. He screams that it’s _not fair_ because he _loves_ his family and she can’t take them from him. His head is pounding and he can’t _move_.

 

The door to his room slams open and silhouetted in the doorway is a very broad shape that blocks most of the light from the hall.

 

Magnus.

 

And just like that, he comes fully awake and he’s throwing the blankets from his body, arms reaching out like a small child toward the doorway. He’s still crying, shuddering, wracking sobs that make it hard to breathe but Magnus is _here_ and he’s _real_.

 

“Oh Ango,” Magnus says, rushing in. Angus has seen the way Magnus stops himself from touching, hugging, tickling, like he’s not sure if he should or has the right. This time, Magnus doesn’t hesitate. He scoops Angus into his arms, warm and strong, and hugs him close. Angus presses his face into Magnus’s neck, gripping him tight like if he doesn’t, Magnus will fade to smoke. “Ango,” he says again but all Angus can do is cry. Magnus makes a sound that can only be described as distressed and Angus _hates_ that he’s the cause.

 

“I-I’m s-sorry,” he mutters, clinging to Magnus’s shirt, moving his face to rest against the fabric on his chest.

 

“Angus, no,” Magnus says, pulling the boy impossibly closer. “Don’t—I’m not mad or upset. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

 

He can feel himself starting to calm, the steady, if quick, beat of Magnus’s heart beneath his ear. “I’m f-fine, sir,” Agnus says, slipping into old habits. Magnus makes that noise again and Angus realizes that it’s the first time he’s called the man _sir_ since their first week together.

 

“You were _screaming_ ,” Magnus whispers and it’s only then that Angus feels Magnus shaking.

 

“I couldn’t—my body wouldn’t move and I—“ Angus starts, still crying but more in control. “I thought I was back…before. Before the Bureau and my g-grandfather.” Magnus’s thumb is moving in gentle swipes across his back and Angus shudders. “I was afraid that I—“

 

“Angus, it’s okay. You don’t have to,” Magnus murmurs but Angus shakes his head.

 

“I was afraid that you weren’t _real_.” The thrum of Magnus’s heart has begun to slow to an easy pace that seems to settle into Angus like a familiar song. “I was afraid I was back in the orphanage and back in the attic.”

 

Magnus doesn’t speak when Angus tells the story of his childhood. There’s no embellishment or bragging, no funny anecdotes. Magnus doesn’t gasp in any of the places or chuckle or ask questions like he normally does. He sits, his large frame looking bigger than ever on the small, boy-sized bed with Agnus wrapped up in his arms. It’s only when it gets hard to talk, when Angus recounts his very last and most important case that Magnus squeezes him tight and mutters a curse under his breath.

 

Angus shifts, pulling up the leg of his shorts to show Magnus the scar and Magnus uses shaky fingers to brush along the puckered, pink skin that no magic healing could fix—the matron made sure of that with the curse she aimed. Angus bites his lip, fighting every urge run and hide knowing that with his grandfather gone and his file fed to the Voidfish, Magnus is the only person in the world who knows about this.

 

“You’re incredible,” Magnus says when it’s all said and done. The sun has crawled her way into the sky and has begun to stream through Angus’s large window. He pulls back just enough so he can look at Angus’s face where he still sits in his lap. “Absolutely incredible. I love you, kid. You know that right?”

 

Angus, exhausted and unbelievably _happy_ , looks back. He takes in Magnus’s face, open and and sincere and just a little bit impressed. “Yeah, Magnus. I love you too.”

 

—————

 

Magnus is sure he’s ruining Angus’s life despite the fact that the move out of the city isn’t even his idea in the first place.

 

“I’m tired of Rockport,” Angus says with a shrug over dinner one night. “The school year is over and the militia won’t hire me for cases so what’s the point in staying here?”

 

“You _like_ the city.” Magnus scoops more pasta onto Angus’s plate distractedly. Angus has grown four inches over the last year and Magnus has taken to making extra food to match his increased appetite.

 

“It’s okay,” Angus replies. He shovels more food into his mouth and grins at Magnus. “Besides, I’m 14-years-old now! I think 14 is a good age to go on some adventures!” Magnus _doesn’t_ agree but remembers wanting to start his own adventuring even younger so he can’t really argue. Plus, it’s not like Angus didn’t help save the entire planar system _and_ end up at the top of his class for the school year. Magnus finds his resolve slipping.

 

He hums, considering. “Let’s get some ice cream and talk about it on our bench.”

 

In the years since they’ve moved from the lunar base to their small house, the ice cream shop a few blocks over has become a tradition. It’s been there through countless celebrations, discussions, arguments, breakups, and decisions. They sit on the same bench that’s been witness to so many parts of their life, starting with Angus’s first fight and leading them right here.

 

Angus’s feet no longer dangle but sit flat on the ground while he carefully licks the ice cream cone—still chocolate. Magnus marvels at how much can change over the course of three years and yet somehow stay the same and he wonders if Angus even remembers coming here that autumn day all that time ago. He studies the shape Agnus’s face and the his long slender fingers. He’s lost the roundness in his cheeks, the inches of height have stretched him, like taffy in a puller.

 

His hair is unruly as ever and a little too long for Magnus’s taste. He can’t count how many times he’s seen girls and boys stealing furtive glances at his boy as they walk through the market. For a long time, Magnus with his scars, sideburns, and massive size had drawn eyes from strangers and he knows the difference between curiosity and attraction. Agnus is _handsome_ in a way Magnus will never be and it makes Magnus smile to know that the boy is also painfully oblivious.

 

“We can visit Merle,” Angus says, breaking Magnus from his thoughts.

 

He laughs. “That’s where you want to go on your adventure?”

 

Angus wrinkles his nose and rolls his eyes, a new development of this teenage version of himself. “No, but it would be nice to stop and see him,” he replies. “And maybe Taako too.”

 

“You just want to run away to learn more magic,” Magnus teases, catching an errant drip of vanilla and a stray rainbow sprinkle—he’s branched out a little bit in the last few years, but not much.

 

Angus laughs, bumping his shoulder into Magnus. “It’s not running away if you come with me. I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.” It’s an earnest claim, one that Magnus can _feel_.

 

Something catches in his throat.

 

He realizes that he feels exactly the same way. He knows that dragons couldn’t drag him away from Agnus at his point. Nothing in this world would make him willingly leave this boy. “Uh, yeah. Sure, Ango,” he says, more than a little flustered by this slowly built but incredibly sudden realization. Angus smiles into his ice cream like he’s just told the world’s best secret.

 

—————

 

They travel for quite some time. They stop at Merle’s house, visit with Mavis and Mookie and Magnus laughs when Angus blushes under Mavis’s claim that he’s grown even more handsome since the last time they saw each other. Merle is uncommonly kind to Angus and it makes his heart swell when Merle claps him on the back to congratulate him with finishing school. He watches Magnus teach Mookie wrestling moves on the beach in the light of the small bonfire. Angus catches himself wondering what Magnus would have been like if Ravensroost had never happened.

 

The story Raven's Roost and Steven and Julia was told in soft whispers a year or so ago. In a shared bed on the anniversary of the act itself. Angus remembers the sadness, palpable enough to taste in the quiet of the room but he also remembers the frustration. He remembers Magnus’s wet voice as he explained the things he lost in Wonderland and how he’ll never be able to find the person who killed what he though was best of him.

 

Magnus was never afraid to cry and Angus did his best to comfort in darkness of his room. He held Magnus long after the end of the story, held him until his shuddering breath quieted and he mumbled apologies. Angus is unsure of how to explain that he feels privileged to know this part of Magnus without seeming callous and uncaring. He knows that Magnus would never take it that way, but instead Angus says, “I love you, Magnus” over and over until they both fall asleep.

 

He thinks that if Julia and Steven and Raven's Roost never happened, Magnus would have been a really, really great dad but then again, maybe he already is.

 

——————

 

They meet Taako in some small town on the Sword Coast and are unsurprised to see the tail end of a rift to the Astral Plane disappear as they pull up. Magnus rolls his eyes are Angus who laughs behind a hand.

 

They’ve known about Kravitz since the moon base.

 

Taako shows them his little restaurant and cooks them the most delicious meal they’ve ever eaten. Magnus remembers it from the days on the Star Blaster as something Taako used to make often, though always a little bit different. Taako laughs when he mentions it and says, “Still don’t have it down exactly, but I think I’m getting close.”

 

The umbrastaff is long gone, bequeathed to Barry after the defeat of the Hunger and the end of the apocalypse. Every once in a while, Taako makes to reach for it and Magnus feels a pang in his chest. He wonders if, after the return of their memories, Taako heard her voice again like in Barry’s cave and that’s why he couldn’t bare to keep it.

 

They stay for a few weeks. Four days in Angus pulls Taako aside and tells him they know about Kravitz and to please invite him for dinner. It would be nice to meet him face to face without the threat of the end of the world or imminent death hanging over them. Angus has never seen Taako blush before, but the tips of his ears go pink and it’s endlessly hilarious.

 

Magnus puts on a big show of seeming like the scary older brother when Kravitz appears through a rift in the living room. It lasts for all of two minutes before he’s laughing and throwing an arm over the reaper’s shoulder like they’re old friends—and isn’t that something to think about? Magnus the man who couldn’t die and Death himself sharing a drink on a floral patterned couch.

 

Angus rolls his eyes fondly as he watches Magnus recount an old story enthusiastically, happy to finally have someone who hasn’t heard them all a dozen times—Angus will _never_ say anything on the matter because he loves listening to Magnus weave a tale. His heart feels so full watching the man swing his arms about and with the way Magnus’s eyes shine when he’s particularly excited. He turns from the scene to help Taako in the kitchen only to see the elf watching all three of them with the same, fond expression.

 

When he sees Angus looking, he clears his throat and goes back to chopping up carrots—old fashioned as always, never using magic. “So Agnes,” he says to fill the quiet of the kitchen. “What’re your plans now?”

 

Angus crosses to the other side of the counter, picking up a knife to peel potatoes. “Not sure. Depends on where Magnus wants to go,” he says.

 

That gets him a raised eyebrow. “You’re not going on to a university?” The knife falters and Angus mutters a swear under his breath when it pricks his skin. Of _course_ Taako would ask about the one thing he didn’t want to talk about. “Smooth, Dangus,” Taako titters. He conjures a bandage and places it on the small cut.

 

Angus sighs. “I want to stay with Magnus.”

 

“What the issue then, bubbaleh?”

 

“He thinks—he keeps telling me that I’m wasting time traveling around with him,” is the answer. It’s incredibly frustrating because Magnus thinks that Angus could be doing better things than adventuring with him but to Angus there isn’t really anything else in this _world_ that he wants to do. University could wait, honestly. It’s not like he needed to go right away and he thinks it would be nice to spend a few years wandering and wait for the rest of the kids his age to catch up. It would be nice to be in class with people his own age for once.

 

Angus rubs at the back of his neck, a habit he’s picked up after living with Magnus for so long. “Every time I bring it up, he talks like I’ll be back in school at the end of the summer. I don’t—how do I get him to understand that I _want_ to stay with him?”

 

Taako lets out a laugh that sounds more like a huff than anything. “Stubborn man, ain’t he?” Angus nods, staring down at the half peeled potatoes.

 

“What do I do?” he asks, hating the helpless sound to his voice. “Is it that he doesn’t want me around?

 

Taako shakes his head quickly. “Magnus thinks you’ve hung the stars in the sky, Agnus. You’ll think of something, my man,” Taako says. “You always do.”

 

——————

 

Magnus doesn’t want the summer to end. He loves being out on the road with Angus and he loves the way every new town or village is like Candlenights for his boy. The second they get into a new place, Angus is off, dragging Magnus by the hand to all the different sights and shops. Magnus laughs, secretly loving every since ounce of enthusiasm that pours from every part of Angus’s body.

 

He loves this wandering life but he also knows he has a job as Angus’s guardian so he starts asking which universities Angus is looking into. Each time, the question is dodged with the skill of someone who could only have been tutored by Taako Taaco. No matter how hard he tries, Magnus can’t get an answer out of the boy until one night, he does.

 

In every town or city they visit, Magnus picks up a pamphlet for local schools that specialize in arcane arts or criminal studies (he’s not sure which Angus would prefer so he errs on the side of caution and gets both) and leaves them on the bed in the wagon they’ve been traveling in.

 

He's not expecting Angus to come stomping out minutes after they say goodnight but there's suddenly a piece of parchment shoved in his face and Angus's angry expression lit by the fire.

 

"Do you—“ the boy falters for words and his face shifts quickly between anger and hurt just quick enough that Magnus catches it but he doesn't have time to say anything before Angus is pointing an accusing finger at him. "Do you _want_ me to leave? Because, I—because I will, Magnus if that's what you want." His voice cracks just a little and it feels like a stab to the gut.

 

"Ango—Angus, _no_ ," he breathes, nearly choking on the words in his rush to get them out, to _explain_. "I just want you— _god_ , I want you to be happy!" He reaches out for the boy and Angus steps back, out of range.

 

"I'm happy here! With _you_! I tried to tell you over and over," Angus says, and he wipes at his face angrily but Magnus sees the wet trails in the glow of the fire.

 

He's at a loss for words, just for a moment before it all comes tumbling out. "Angus you're so much _more_ than this!” he says, gesturing to the wagon, to himself. “More than _me_! I can't teach you magic and I can't teach you things from books! I'm not—“ he grits his teeth, wrings his hands together where they're clenched in his lap in the nervous way he's picked up in the last few years “—I’m not smart like you, Angus." Magnus looks down at his hands, watches his knuckles turn white as he squeezes.

 

There's a soft, sad sound and the next thing he knows he's got an arm full of 14-year-old boy.

 

Angus is much too tall to fit comfortably on Magnus's lap but they manage, Magnus whispering out apologies as Angus holds him tight. He tells Magnus that he loves him fiercely and that he would trade all the magic in the world just to stay where he is right now. Magnus tries to wipe his eyes but the tears fall into Angus’s mop of hair.

 

They stay like that until Angus falls asleep, exhausted but satisfied with Magnus’s promise that they’ll stay together for as long as he wants. Magnus lifts him carefully, tucked against his body just like he did when they first moved to Rockport and Angus would fall asleep on the couch while reading Caleb Cleaveland aloud to Magnus. He carries him to the bed, tucking him beneath the blankets and not for the first time, watches him sleep until he dozes off himself.


End file.
